Is Erdogan hindering Turkey's foreign policy reset?

Is Erdogan hindering Turkey's foreign policy reset? (AlMonitor)

Are Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in tune on foreign policy? This is a question diplomats in Ankara are asking after some mixed signals on this score. Turkey’s relations with Israel and Egypt are two cases in point which indicate that Erdogan and Davutoglu may not be speaking from the same script.

At any rate, as Al-Monitor’s Tulin Daloglu indicated in her Feb. 10 post for Turkey Pulse, Davutoglu’s comments during an interview in November 2013 also suggested that Turkey was more flexible in this regard. Initially Ankara had made the lifting of the blockade one of the conditions for normalized ties.

“To tell you the truth, … the change of power in Egypt has significantly impacted the developments regarding Gaza. And a significant majority of all the aid going to Gaza is now is delivered through Israel,” he told Kanal 24 on Nov 8.

Considering that Israel does not intend to raise the Gaza blockade yet — and even a suggestion that it was planning to do so would have long since been major international news — many took Davutoglu’s latest remarks as an indication that this issue was not a stumbling block.

It appears, however, that it is — if Erdogan has anything to do with it. Erdogan said in interview with Al Jazeera English on Feb. 11 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apology in March for the Mavi Marmara raid, and compensation for the Turks killed would not be enough. He indicated that he also wanted Israel to provide Turkey unencumbered access to Gaza.

“The embargo [on Gaza] has to be lifted. This can be tied to a protocol. If these steps are taken than we can resume the normalization process again by appointing ambassadors. But this cannot happen if the embargo between Turkey and Gaza is not lifted. Anything we send there has to enter the region freely,” Erdogan said.

Reactions to Erdogan from Israel were quick in coming. “I am in favor of an agreement with Turkey, but [the current impasse] is Erdogan’s fault,” Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz told public radio in his country. “I don’t understand Erdogan’s behavior,” he added.

But ties with Israel are not the only ones suffering from his often off-the-cuff angry remarks. Normalized ties between Turkey and Egypt are also postponed indefinitely for the same reason. Erdogan continues to vilify the current Egyptian government and the Egyptian military which ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

He repeated his deep dislike of the new rulers in Egypt during his Feb. 11 interview with Al Jazeera English when he said, “It is not possible for us to accept an administration such as this, which has carried out a coup.”

This week’s visit by Egypt’s strongman Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Moscow, where he was received warmly by President Vladimir Putin, and Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy’s talks in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands show, however, that the new regime in Egypt is far from being isolated.

Cairo therefore appears to be in no hurry to normalize ties with Ankara. Diplomatic ties remain at the lowest level after Egypt expelled the Turkish ambassador in November 2013. Egyptian officials were especially angered over Erdogan’s contention that Israel was behind the coup in that country.

When Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy was asked, prior to leaving for Europe this week, when Egypt planned to send its ambassador back to Ankara, the Turkish media quoted him as saying this could only happen after the conditions underlying the present situation changed. Given Erdogan’s stance on Egypt, this does not appear soon.

Answering questions for Al-Monitor’s Ayah Aman in January, Hussein Haridi, a former Egyptian assistant foreign minister, reflected the mood in Cairo. “It won’t cause Egypt any harm if it distances itself from Turkey for the time being, especially since Turkey currently doesn’t have power in the Middle East, and it has misjudged the Syrian crisis. We have reached the highest degree of escalation with Turkey, because Erdogan has trespassed all diplomatic limits and norms,” he said.

Turkish-Egyptian ties remain at rock bottom, with bilateral trade showing a decline, too. Meanwhile, new topics creating tension between the two countries are emerging, making a rapprochement harder in the long run. One such topic that has angered Egypt is the alleged support Turkey is giving to Ethiopia for the Renaissance Dam being built on the Blue Nile.

It is not clear how Ankara hopes to reestablish an influential position for itself in the region without a coherent and realistic approach to the region's major issues.Hmmmm.......Obama's BFF, a man is known by the comp he keeps. Read the full story here.